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Last week Governor J.B. Pritzker mandated vaccines for healthcare workers in the state of Illinois (with an opt out, but requires weekly testing). He blamed them for COVID cases in healthcare settings. Unvaccinated staff, as of today (9/1/21) will now be required to pay for their own rapid COVID tests, as the IL Dept of Public Health is ceasing to provide healthcare facilities and organizations with the rapid tests due to “an upcoming shortage.” Yeah, sure....
Email is from the Lake County Health Dept sent to a healthcare facility:
We all know that vaccinated individuals can still catch and spread COVID. Matter of fact, just out today:
Nearly 20,000 fully vaccinated Massachusetts residents have now tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 130 of them have died, according to the latest state data on breakthrough cases published Tuesday.
The Department of Public Health has tracked a cumulative 19,443 confirmed COVID-19 infections among those fully vaccinated in the state to date and a total of 144 deaths. In the last week alone, 3,074 new breakthrough cases -- infections in people who have been vaccinated -- have been reported. Health officials said 651 of the new breakthrough cases resulted in hospitalization, or about 0.01% of all fully vaccinated individuals.
Breakthrough infections again accounted for about 40% of all cases reported in Massachusetts last week.
The number of new breakthrough cases announced each Tuesday has climbed each week since DPH announced the initial batch of 7,737 breakthrough infections on July 31.
The fact that the Illinois Dept of Public Health isn’t supplying healthcare facilities with rapid tests when breakthrough cases aren’t that rare after all (and don’t require vaccinated to be tested, even though they can spread and remain asymptomatic) just shows they’re doing this to cause a burden on unvaccinated healthcare workers. Further, there all laws on the books in Illinois to prevent this kind of harassment (not that these politicians care, but some lawyers might). This new development is just a scheme to harass people and make it a hassle to comply with his mandate. Nothing more.
